


Boar

by piratemistress



Series: Pearls [4]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-04
Updated: 2007-05-04
Packaged: 2018-04-11 23:42:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4457024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratemistress/pseuds/piratemistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a trip with her father, Elizabeth encounters a strange creature on the road; Jack recounts the story of his escape from the rum-runners’ island (actually called Black Sam’s Spit, according to recent info from TnT) and the consequences of his ‘bartering.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boar

**Author's Note:**

> Last of the oneshot stories - the subsequent “Elephant” and “Bamboo” have grown quite large and will be posted in segments. Thanks to everyone who’s been reading and commenting so far.

  
_Pearl of the boar's head, violet sphere, incarnation of Vishnu who rescued the Earth from the sea though it took him one thousand years, bring us bliss.  
  
  
_ The sky was indigo over Kingston as Elizabeth watched out the window of the coach, her mind wandering as it frequently did when she traveled. She had accompanied her father on his trip, matters concerning the welfare of the island, more so that he could keep an eye on her than for company, she supposed, given his suspicions about the last time he left her to her own devices at home. They rode steadily along a street by the river, water to their left and thick, wooded trees to their right. She peered curiously out into the near-darkness, noting that the winter - warm as it was in the Caribbean - was darkening the sky a little earlier than usual.  
  
She was no longer a child, and part of her resented the restrictions placed upon her - especially having been free of them once before, out at sea - but that was past, she reminded herself, and it was time to appreciate the present. Time didn't simply _stop_ because things hadn't worked out as she planned or hoped.  
  
Or perhaps it did, she thought as the coach's movement was suddenly arrested. She glanced over at her father, his white-curled wig flopping as he whipped his head to the side, leaning out the window.  
  
“What's the trouble?” he said calmly to their driver.  
  
Elizabeth heard the neighing of horses and strained her neck to see out the window.  
  
“There's a boar in the road, sir,” the driver called in an anxious voice. “'E won't move and the horses are spooked.”  
  
“A boar?” her father echoed in surprise. “Well, can you get him out of our way?”  
  
“Best to wait for him to move on his own, sir - he's a male, with some fierce tusks, if I may say, sir.”  
  
“Oh - heavens,” Governor Swann said, leaning back in the seat. To Elizabeth he continued to fret almost under his breath. “We were delayed already in getting to the Filberts'. Their poor staff shall be watching for us half the night.”  
  
“I'm rather tired, myself,” Elizabeth said with a sudden yawn that she covered modestly with her fingers. “And as long as we're considering the servants, I fear I shall fall asleep right here in the coach and poor Nelson shall have to carry me inside like a giant sack of flour wearing a dress.”  
  
Her father chuckled, and the coach jerked slightly, causing them both to sit upright. One of the horses had reared up and was refusing to settle. “Goodness!” said Governor Swann.  
  
Elizabeth stuck her head out the window. “Where is this boar, Mr. Nelson?” she said sharply.  
  
“Right o' front of us, Miss Swann.”  
  
With a sigh she reached down to lift the latch and sprang open the door. “Elizabeth!” her father said worriedly. “Close the door at once.”  
  
She ignored him - as she often did in small matters - and climbed down, holding her skirts carefully so that she wouldn't trip. She walked around the side of the coach, to see the boar, scratching the ground in the middle of the road, looking for all the world as though he were about the flop upon it and loll around for a dirt bath.  
  
“Hey! You!” she called.  
  
“Shhh! Miss Swann, I don't think you ought to-“  
  
“Get out of the road!” she yelled to the boar, staying well back but drawing up alongside the horses. “Move it along! Go on, now!”  
  
The boar seemed to see her - or perhaps heard her, and turned its head in her direction.  
  
“Oh! Miss Swann, please get back in the coach! What if 'e charges?”  
  
“If he charges,” she said evenly from between tightened lips, “I'll get back in the coach - and then he'll be out of the road, won't he?”  
  
“Elizabeth!” she heard her father saying inside the coach. “Come back in here at once!”  
  
“Just a moment,” she called to him. To the boar again, she said, “Did you hear me? I said, _move_!”  
  
The boar stopped its scratching, and snorted and chuffed, waving its tusks in the air. Elizabeth found it hard to be intimidated by a creature that couldn't keep all its teeth inside its lips. Then its front leg began to stamp and scratch, rhythmically.  
  
“'E's going to charge!” Nelson said, wide-eyed, clutching the reins tight. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes on the animal, waiting to see what it would do.   
  
Suddenly the boar launched into action, leaping headlong in the direction of the coach. Elizabeth turned and pulled at the door latch, planning on jumping back inside.  
  
The latch snapped off in her hand. She held it, dumbfounded, as the terrified horses whinnied and took off, and the coach pulled away with her wide-eyed father watching her through the window. The boar made an abrupt turnabout and with a very serious expression on its nonetheless odd-looking face, charged after the coach. She watched in disbelief as the coach lurched down the road, and the boar, attracted by the noise, galloped crookedly after it, raising dust in its wake.  
  
“Wonderful,” she said, standing alone in the dark in the middle of the road on the hill. Her father would send them back as soon as they had the horses under control, she was certain. But they had to be clear of the boar, turn around and come all the way back. She turned back toward the city, seeing it glitter beneath her, and wished she were dressed in her seaman garb so that she might slip in unnoticed.  
  
As though pulled by an invisible string, she began to walk slowly down the road toward Kingston. Her traveling costume was dark and not easily seen, and she knew better than to wander the city alone, but she felt even more uneasy on the dark road. It was unlikely she would reach the city before the coach came back for her. Really, walking was just something to do.  
  
Like traveling, she thought. Perhaps if she kept moving - accompanying her father on trips, walking along roads, pacing the floors of the house like a ghost - she would notice less that she could not quite find the right spot anywhere. She felt as though she were spinning, sometimes, the whole universe surrounding her and whirling past. A sense of vertigo came upon her when she thought about it too much, or when the occasional stroll through town took her past the smithy with its new sign that read, _W. Turner, Blacksmith_ , and she would spin away from it so fast she would almost not notice the blonde woman laughing as she exited, her face bright beneath her simple white cap, her lips puffy from the kisses her husband gave her when she brought him his lunch. Her name was Anita St. John, and she was the baker's younger sister who had arrived from Charleston two years before. The passage of time made Elizabeth's head spin, and she tried not to think about the fact that Will had married Anita almost six months ago.  
  
Just then she heard the clatter of hooves and wheels in the distance, and she turned to see another closed coach approaching. It wasn't hers - the wrong color, and a bit smaller - but it slowed to a stop just past her. Elizabeth was surprised they'd stopped - usually only ladies of the evening would be found along the side of the road - but her proper clothing was an indication she'd come from somewhere other than the docks of Kingston.  
  
An elderly woman leaned out. “Young miss - what are you doing there in the dark?”  
  
“My coach has taken off without me,” she answered, crossing the road. “How do you do - we, er, had a mishap with a boar.”  
  
“Gracious! Yes, we passed them going the other away, almost collided, too! Why, they'll be a while coming back. Would you like to get in? We're headed into town. To the theater. Where are my manners? I'm Lucretia Mason. My husband, Howard.” Howard grunted. “After we get out you may certainly take the coach where you're going - where _are_ you going?”  
  
“My name is Elizabeth Swann - my father and I are to be guests of the Filberts'.”  
  
“Oh, well!” The woman tapped the arm of the man beside her with her reticule. “Howard, it's the governor's daughter! Move over.”  
  
Howard grumbled but complied, and a liveried, wigged footman appeared to open the door for Elizabeth. “Thank you,” she said as she ascended. Soon they were moving again, and Elizabeth once again watched out the window as the city approached.  
  
The streets of Kingston were filled with all sorts of activity, and the new theater was only beginning to draw the more respectable crowd into the center - soldiers kept order and suspicious characters moved swiftly into the shadows. Elizabeth found herself searching among the untidy and bandanna-wrapped heads for a particular combination of scarf and unkempt hair. She didn't realize she was doing it until her elderly companion remarked, “Frightful, isn't it? I do wonder how many of these so-called sailors are really _pirates_.”  
  
“At least three,” Elizabeth murmured, recognizing several faces.   
  
“What was that?”  
  
“Nothing,” she replied, smiling at the older woman. Then it struck her that she recognized the faces because she'd worked beside them. They had been on the _Pearl_. A twinge of anticipation coursed through her chest, settling beneath her sternum, as she considered the possibility that the _Pearl_ was in port, somewhere nearby. It had been more than a year since she'd seen it, though it had certainly been less time since she'd thought of its captain.  
  
Not for lack of trying.  
  
The coach drew to a halt, and Mr. and Mrs. Mason were helped down. Elizabeth moved to get up, but Mrs. Mason clucked her tongue. “Don't be silly! Just as soon as Jameson tends to the horses, here, he'll drive you to the Filberts' straightaway. You might get there before the others, all considered. Do send our regards to the governor, won't you?” she amended rather loudly, causing a number of heads on the street to turn in the direction of the coach.  
  
“Yes, madam,” Elizabeth said with a smile, settling back onto the seat. She sighed, and peered out again, looking for any further sign of crewmen from the _Pearl_. It was foolish, she knew. And so what if they were in port? It changed nothing.  
  
When the coach began to move again, she relaxed, sitting back despite those lingering shivers of anticipation she'd felt at the thought of seeing her pirate comrades - well, one in particular - again. Just before she allowed the curtain to drop from her fingers, she spotted a man waving his arms frantically and shouting - a man in a white wig - but he was rapidly out of sight as they rode off down the street. Amid all of the chaotic activity, it was not terribly unusual, and Elizabeth ignored the niggling suspicion that the man in the wig had been the footman she'd seen driving the Masons' coach - it couldn't be him, he had been wearing a light blue coat, after all.  
  
The coach rattled out of the city - rather slowly, and unsteadily at times, and Elizabeth wondered if Jameson had had a nip to drink between journeys, but she said nothing since she was heading in the proper direction and somewhere, soon, there would be a soft bed and an end to the jostling.  
  
There was an end to it, but sooner than she expected - passing a crossroads by a field and the woods, the coach stopped. Elizabeth sighed in frustration, though she might easily have been alarmed. “What now,” she muttered, glancing out the window.  
  
Darkness out there; nothing more. She heard a pair of feet hit the ground, and she could only assume the footman had descended to speak with her. She heard his footsteps outside the coach door, and when it was yanked open - none too politely - she said, “I suppose there's _another_ boar in the road? Shall I have to...”  
  
Then her words died in her throat as she saw who leaned casually against the side of the coach, black locks of hair sprouting everywhere above the collar of a clearly borrowed footman's coat that was stretched taut across his folded arms. His smile was arrogant and lopsided, his mustache twitching with amusement as he took in the shock that must have been plain on her face. “Not a boar,” Jack said slyly.  
  
“No... only a pig,” Elizabeth replied after a second of recovery, looking him up and down.  
  
“Lovely to see you, too, darling - how long has it been?”  
  
“Not nearly long enough.”  
  
He chuckled and climbed in, after shrugging out of the jacket, which he tossed on the seat. He leaned over to pull the door shut and settled himself opposite her. “I _am_ sorry about our last encounter - we both had our unpleasant surprises, but mine was only in fun.”  
  
“I'm glad you thought so,” she said, compressing her lips, wondering how long it would take her to undo the effect of seeing him this time. “Jack, I'm expected somewhere. I can't dally with you beside the road.”  
  
“More's the pity - dallying sounds like a marvelous idea to me,” he said, turning and propping his booted feet against the side of the coach, folding his arms behind his head.  
  
“I suppose I'll have to drive the coach myself?” Elizabeth said, scooting over and reaching for the door handle. In a flash he had caught her hand, and the touch of his thumb and finger upon her flesh was unnervingly warm.   
  
“Now that wouldn't be proper at all, would it?” he nearly purred, drawing her hand over to his face and planting a wet kiss on her palm. Her eyes closed for a long blink, but she forced them open again.  
  
“More proper than remaining alone, in the dark, in a coach driven by a pirate masquerading as a footman - I can hardly think which my father would take objection to first.”  
  
“I've done better - masquerades, I mean.” He paused, eyeing her curious expression. “Shall I tell you the story? It does bear a connection to the last one.”  
  
She stared at him, mentally cursing him for knowing her weakness for his tales. She longed to know more about him, almost more than she longed to be with him - knowledge lasted, whereas his company was always fleeting. It was one of the conclusions she'd reached over the last few years. And ever since she'd gotten him to tell her his stories - even after he had said “The first rule of talking about the past is that I _never_ talk about the past” - she'd come to understand him better. Well, better - or worse.  
  
“Is this a long story, Jack?” she said, trying not to sound too interested. “I really have to be at the Filberts' by midnight, or there'll be trouble.”  
  
“Trouble?” Jack folded himself smoothly into a sitting position, all the while holding her eyes. “Have you still a reputation to uphold? Or has Papa finally figured out what you've been up to... hm?”  
  
She closed her eyes against the tide of images that rushed in - their previous meeting, the ones before that. “A little of both,” she tried to say calmly. “I'm a little old to be unwed, but my father's been most careful to protect me from scandal.”  
  
“Far more careful than you, I'd wager,” Jack mused.  
  
“Rules of propriety become inconvenient under certain circumstances,” she said, watching warily as he moved to sit beside her, crowding her with his warmth.  
  
“Aye, they do,” he said. “And I don't 'spose you would reconsider throwing propriety to the winds and never returning home at all?”   
  
“No.”  
  
“I thought not. Sort of wasted my shot at that, didn't I?”  
  
“You might say that,” she said dryly.  
  
With an exaggerated sigh, he threw an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, then... make yourself comfortable.”  
  
“I'm quite comfortable, thank you,” she said, but after a pause during which he regarded her stiff posture with a raised eyebrow, she permitted herself to rest her cheek against his shoulder. She inhaled his smell, and felt a rush of very strong longing, like an undercurrent pulling her out to sea.  
  
His fingers curled around her shoulder. “Now - it's perfectly fitting that we should be sitting here like this, in the dark, just like that night on the island - because it's got to do with that. The first time I was there.”  
  
“When you were rescued by the rum-runners?”  
  
“I didn't say I was _rescued_ by them. I said they came by, and I bartered passage off. Did you ever think to wonder what I'd bartered with?”  
  
She hadn't. She assumed Jack talked his way into, and out of, everything - which was not really the case, the more she learned. Talking only went so far in the world. But he could talk to her all through this world and the next... she loved the sound of his voice, the inflections of his speech, the wandering nature of his stories - she could listen for ever, and she suspected he knew it, because he gathered her closer as he began the tale.  
  
  
  
In the shade of a coconut tree, Jack was clearing a space to build a shelter. He thought he might need it when the glaring sun got to be too much, and it also struck him as more pleasant place for his bones to rest than sprawled across the sand or washed out to sea. Not that he wouldn't prefer a burial at sea - to be shot of out a cannon, perhaps, or floated away strapped to a raft for all eternity - but lacking the pomp and circumstance of those, a small hut might both keep him alive longer and give him a more dignified death.  
  
It was the first day on the island and he was still angry, so every movement was a lunge, a slice, a stab. He swiped at the sand with branches, he stomped on the grass, he ripped out short weeds by the roots, wishing he could do the same to Barbossa's short...   
  
_Neck?_ Elizabeth offered. _Aye, neck,_ Jack said with a small frown before continuing.  
  
As he worked he replayed the events of the mutiny in his mind, how he'd turned from the wheel one evening to find five swords drawn upon him, and how he'd searched each of the men's faces as he walked the plank the next morning. Even William - that was Bootstrap - stared forlornly at him from the shadows, and Jack knew he might have tried to stop it, but wasn't quite willing - or able. No matter.  
  
He was handed the pistol and he thought of using it right then, shooting Barbossa in the heart in front of everyone, and Jack wouldn't have lived long after but it might have been worth it. He didn't, though, because he was willing enough to cast his lot with fate and see where it took him. Someone suggested they search Jack to make sure he hadn't anything useful on him.  
  
They made one of the younger men do it - one they knew Jack wouldn't simply grab and break his neck - and the uneasy sailor probed his boots and pants carefully, while Jack looked on with a sneer.  
  
From Jack's pocket the young man pulled the strand of pearls. Oohs and aahs rippled through the crowd but Barbossa barked at them to be silent and took the pearls from the fingers of the young pirate. He dangled them and shook them in the air, looking at Jack, no doubt remembering the incident in Savannah - a story Jack promised to tell Elizabeth later.  
  
“Those are pretty, eh?” said Pintel, gaping at them, exposing brown teeth as he leered.  
  
“That they are,” Barbossa replied, but then turned back to Jack. “Ah - what the hell, he can't eat them, so what do ye say? Jack can keep _these_ pearls - and we'll keep _this_ one! Eh, boys?”  
  
The crew burst into cheers and raucous laughter, and Barbossa tossed the strand to Jack, so carelessly it might have gone into the water had Jack not reached out and snatched them.  
  
“We'll have our treasure soon enough,” Barbossa remarked to the assembled men. “March, Jack. And farewell. Enjoy that _virgin_ spit o' land.”  
  
A moment later Jack was in the sea.  
  
He was nearly beside himself thinking, as he scratched in the sand, what he could have done differently, what he _should_ have said, that he almost didn't notice when he couldn't move any more sand because he'd struck wood. _Wood_. Something was buried there.  
  
He found a piece of branch to pry open the carton. Yo-ho-ho, and _lots_ of rum.   
  
After a few hours he'd almost forgotten about the mutiny. He fished the pearls from his pocket and wondered if they were really lucky, after all. He decided to try them on, and fastened them around his neck, pulling them up to lay across his eyes so he could look at them closely. Up close they were dark as the night sky, and he decided he'd better build a fire for good measure.  
  
By the second day he had taken off his clothes while in a rum-washed ecstatic fit, wrapping a few scarves around his nether regions like a native, not bothered by it at all - after all, there was no one to see, and he was rather drunk. He traipsed the breadth of the island several times. He smashed coconuts in half on rocks and ate the flesh and drank the milk, wearing the pearls all the while. He went back to making a shelter, but the presence of the rum had heartened him. Someone had hidden a cache here - and if they didn't make it back before he died, he'd still have a most pleasant death.  
  
The third day he had gotten bored. He was still drunk - more than ever, and the empty bottles were accumulating where he tossed them among the trees - and he was back to playing with coconut shells, noting the sound they made when clapped together, and he composed a few songs which he'd since forgotten. That night he fell asleep with the two coconut shells across his bare chest, the pearls around his neck, a scarf around his thighs like a sarong, and so it was not surprising that when the rum smugglers arrived the next morning at dawn, they thought at first they'd stumbled on a brown, buxom native woman.  
  
Jack awoke to the sound of Spanish being spoken, and laughter - when he opened his eyes there were two men peering down at him, rather lustily, it seemed. He sat bolt upright and the coconut shells flew off his chest to land in the sand.   
  
“ _Ay, no es mujer, ya te lo dije_ ,” one said to the other, sounding disappointed.  
  
“Amigos,” Jack said, “You've no idea how glad I am to see you.” He regarded the two men, one short and bearded, the other tall and willowy, with piercing eyes and straight, shiny black hair gathered into a tail at the back of his long, thin neck.  
  
“¿ _Que dice, Hernando_?” said the short man, confused. That was Montes, he'd learn later.  
  
“ _Habla inglès_ ,” his companion Ruiz responded, scratching his chin thoughtfully, looking disdainfully at Jack. Jack realized he was half-naked and still wearing the pearls, which he rapidly unclasped and clutched in his fist. The man spoke with an accent. “Well, _amigo_ , I am not so glad to see you. You have been drinking our rum. And men who drink my rum, I usually kill. Slowly.”  
  
“A fine sentiment,” Jack said, “under normal circumstances. But I'm afraid I was marooned here all by me lonesome, and should you be so kind as to bring me aboard, I shall see that you're paid in full for anything I might have consumed while taking advantage of your hospitality. Eh?”  
  
The man regarded him with frank disapproval, and the three men got to their feet. “ _Señor_ , why would I possibly take you with me? You drank my rum, someone hated you enough to leave you here, and you seem a little funny, to tell the truth. And you stink.”  
  
“Gents, I promise to make it worth your while,” Jack insisted.  
  
The tall man spat on the sand. “Promises are only worth the gold they are sealed with, or perhaps a place in Paradise - neither of which you can give me, _señor._ ”  
  
“I haven't got any gold,” he said, smiling, but when the two men lowered their heads to stare at his teeth, he closed his lips. Then an idea came to him. “But I _have_ got...” and he raised the hand that held the pearls, “... these. And these are quite lovely, and worth quite a bit of gold in the right circles. They're all yours, in exchange for passage to wherever you're going that's not here.”  
  
Montes took the pearls, peered at them with rheumy eyes, then opened his mouth to bite them with his back teeth, before shrugging and placing them in the palm of Ruiz. The tall man cast once more disgusted glance at Jack. “Where are your pants, _señor_?”  
  
“They can't have gotten far - it _is_ an island, isn't it, and not a very big one, at that. Give me a few moments and I'll be costumed more to your liking,” Jack said hurriedly, and ran off to search for his misplaced breeches.  
  
  
They sailed that afternoon, after Jack assisted with loading up, and once at sea his skills were a valuable asset. There was a bad storm and Jack kept his head, steering his best, while Montes cowered and Ruiz mumbled prayer after prayer, crossing himself between handling the lines of the sails. A few days later they made port in San Juan, and Jack left the pearls with Ruiz as collateral while he went in search of money.  
  
He should have just let them go. Later, he would wish like hell that he had. Let the smuggler keep them, or try to sell them, but he had every intention of buying them back - since they were, after all, his lucky pearls, perhaps they would help him get back his lucky _ship_. He stole, he cheated at cards, he borrowed from acquaintances - any friends he might know had long since given up lending him money - and in a few days he met Ruiz in a tavern by the docks of San Juan.  
  
He dropped a sack of coin on the table where the tall reed of a man sat.  
  
“Here's your gold, Ruiz,” Jack said, sliding into a chair. “Are we square?”  
  
Ruiz opened the sack and poured out the pieces of eight, examining them carefully. There was a look in his eyes, then, a greed that stemmed from knowledge. Jack had made the mistake of letting on the pearls' sentimental value somehow, and it was now clear to Ruiz that Jack might pay any price for their return. Ruiz sniffed and put the coins back the bag.  
  
“It is not enough.”  
  
“It's what we agreed on,” Jack countered.  
  
“I have changed my mind. This will cover your rum and expenses, but not the pearls. I want this much over again for those. They are quite valuable.”  
  
Jack silently fumed, glaring at the treacherous Ruiz. “Apparently you don't understand the point of a _price_. It's a number we men use to make reasonable exchanges. Now, I met your price, and I want me pretty pearls, savvy?”  
  
Ruiz only smiled, closed-lipped and cruel, the smile seeming like a crack in his long, oval-shaped face. “Meet me tomorrow with the rest, if you want your precious pearls. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be going.”  
  
Ruiz took the sack of coins, rose and strode out of the tavern.  
  
“Where's he bloody well got to go?” Jack said to no one in particular, but one of the men at the bar answered.  
  
“Oh, Hernando Ruiz? Up to see Father Sanchez, I'd reckon. Ruiz is a strange man, but he claims to look after his eternal soul. He's gone to confession. Not that I wager it'll do him any good.”  
  
“Confession, eh?” Jack said, stroking his beard braids thoughtfully. He'd just gotten an idea.  
  
  
  
Ruiz crossed himself with a finger dipped in holy water as he entered the simple, dark church. He probably thought about how close he'd come to death during that storm, and the weight of his sins that pressed upon him no matter what choices he made in life. He walked to the confessional and closed himself inside, kneeling penitently.  
  
_“Bendígame, padre, porque he pecado, mi última Confesión..._ ”  
  
“Sorry, my son, Father Sanchez has gone out,” came a refined whisper. “I'm Father Worthen,” continued the voice kindly. “Do you speak English?”  
  
“Yes,” Ruiz said, a little startled. “Where is Padre Sanchez?”  
  
“Exorcism,” was the reply.   
  
Ruiz cringed and crossed himself hurriedly, seeming a bit nervous but eager to receive the sacrament. “My last confession was... two months ago. Father, I fear for my... how do you say? my immortal soul.”  
  
“Why is that, my son? Have you not obeyed God's law?”  
  
“Well... not always, Father.”  
  
“Are you consumed by impure thoughts?”  
  
Ruiz considered, then bent his head. “Only of gold, Father.”  
  
“I see,” replied the soft voice. “You have made yourself an idol of gold and jewels, that does not bless you the way the Almighty would.”  
  
Ruiz squeezed his eyes shut. “I sail the sea... I prayed not to die when we were caught in the storm... I did not know if He would hear my prayer.”  
  
“Because you are a greedy man.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
A sigh from beyond the screen. “Our Father in Heaven hears all prayers, my son. But you must free yourself of this coveting, this unnatural greed. God provides for all of us.”  
  
“How... how do I do that, Father?”  
  
“To give charitably is the greatest honor, my son. What you have, give to the Church. Here, today. You will leave with a great weight of sin lifted from your shoulders.”  
  
Ruiz thought of the sack of gold, the pearls in his leather pouch. He groaned.  
  
“What was that, mate - my son?”  
  
“Nothing, Father.” Ruiz bent his head. “You may go on.”  
  
“That is your penance, my son, to give your evil riches to the Church. Go and give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.”  
  
“May his mercy endure forever,” Ruiz said, crossing himself and standing up.   
  
He stood by the offering box for a long while, breathing, considering, before glancing up at the image of Christ crucified and emptying the sack of coins into the box. He withdrew the pearls, also, from his pocket and slipped them inside. Then, after another sign of the cross, he left the church.  
  
Jack emerged from the confessional, dressed in officiant's robes he'd found in a room off the sanctuary, his hair bound tightly back with a leather cord and wrapped hastily in a dark scarf. He made his way to the offering box. He smiled as he opened the wooden lid and saw his pearls coiled inside. He reached in and pulled them out.  
  
A clap of thunder sounded outside. Jack jumped, dropping the pearls on the ground. “It's not stealing!” he said to the ceiling, “They're mine!” He picked them up and wove them between his fingers, swearing to himself that he'd never bargain with them again. Of course, he did bargain with them again, which Elizabeth already knew.  
  
Rain began to pour down outside the church, clouds darkening the late afternoon sky, and Jack peered into the offering box again, looking at all the gold coins. All that gold...  
  
“Father!” came a voice, and Jack turned to see Father Sanchez - he presumed, who he'd had delayed with a false message about a woman possessed by a demon on the other side of town - rushing toward him. “I must go and baptize an ill babe,” he said. “What a fortuitous day for your visit! Can you lead the evening mass?”  
  
Jack's eyes became as wide and round as the coins he'd just been eyeing in the offering box.  
  
  
  
Just then, a coach rumbled past where Elizabeth and Jack were curled together in the coach by the side of the road. Elizabeth followed it with her eyes. “That's my father's coach,” she said, turning back to Jack. “They're looking for me.”  
  
“More or less the end of the tale, anyway,” Jack said, peering after the disappearing coach and then bending to brush his lips over Elizabeth's cheek, “so I'd rather use my tongue for something else...”  
  
Elizabeth sighed at his words and his lips beneath her ear caused waves of heat to weave through her, all the way to her toes. “Don't I get to know if... you led the Mass?”  
  
“I tried,” Jack murmured against her neck, nudging the sides of her traveling jacket aside. “They caught on rather quickly - it's harder than it looks.”  
  
“And then - what?” she gasped as she felt his hand beneath her skirt, inching above her knee to her bare thigh.  
  
“I got out of San Juan a lot more quickly than I got... in there,” he said, his hand finding its way in between her thighs.  
  
“How... quickly?” Elizabeth asked, her hands brushing his face and beard in the darkness as he pushed himself off the seat and onto the floor.   
  
“Don't worry, love,” he said, lifting her skirts all the way up and seating himself between her spread knees with a mischievous look. “When called for, I _do_ know how to be quick.”  
  
For once, it seemed Jack was telling the truth. Not, of course, without good reason, for when   
her damp, trembling fingers had unclenched from the edge of the seat and her heart returned to beating at a reasonable pace, he grasped her wrists to pull her down onto the floor and took her place on the seat with an intimidating smile - reduced somewhat in effect by the high color in his cheeks and a sort of desperation in his eyes - and his voice was quite deep as he asked, “Ready for that lesson I promised you last time? Ought to be easy, since for you, keeping your mouth closed seems to be more of a challenge...”  
  
She answered with her hot, perspiring palm upon his, fingers intertwining to a suddenly firm clasp, her knuckles whitening as he gripped her hand harder and harder until, many moments later, he let go.  
  
  
  
* * *  
  
An hour later, Governor Swann sprang up from his seat by the window, almost knocking over a lamp in his haste, as he rushed to the door of the Filberts' lavish home. He nearly collided with the butler, who had also seen the coach approaching, and both men stood at the doorway.  
  
Governor Swann watched as a light-blue-jacketed footman opened the coach door and helped Elizabeth down in a most gracious fashion, and she smiled at him, a little too fondly, it seemed to her father. And yet her expression was sad, as though she were saying goodbye to a very dear friend.  
  
Elizabeth ascended the front steps and the footman watched her intently before climbing the seat and driving off. “Hello, Papa,” she said with a tired smile. “I was offered a ride by some passers-by. Very nice people, actually - the Masons, who I'd never met. I hope you don't mind?”  
  
“That was almost three hours ago! Where have you been in the meantime?” her father demanded in a restrained voice, following her as she strolled casually into the parlor.  
  
“We rode into town, and then back out of town, and then we got a bit lost. But everything turned out all right.” She sighed, patting her hair as though she weren't quite sure it should still be attached to her head. “I am exhausted. May I be shown to my room?”  
  
Governor Swann frowned at her as the butler gestured for her to follow him. “Have I seen that footman before?” he said as they climbed the steps.  
  
“Of course not,” she said, stifling a yawn. “Papa, I fear you're a bit too anxious these days. Good night.”  
  
That night she dreamed that she was on the bottom of the ocean, and Jack was swimming down to save her. It couldn't have been a memory - she had been unconscious for that - and he held a sword in one hand and a ship's wheel in the other. But the oddest thing was that his two beard braids had grown out to become tusks, his face had flattened and grown over with fur, and he was the boar from the road. He had her in his arms and was swimming for the surface.  
  
They spun as they rose. The water and bubbles and fish spun wildly around her. She was floating and spinning amid shafts of sunlight, and she wasn't dizzy at all.   
  



End file.
